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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 40: Slade 264
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 85
The first spell went off, and a slurry of mud and water rose out of the bug-infested grassy pool by the footpath. Shella guided the mess to slump off to the side of the small pool. Another spell, and another spell, and another followed the first. The water began bubbling up in the center of the pool.
“Moving water will keep off the bugs.” Slade said.
“Yes, my thought too.” With that, Shella began using her spell to cut a ditch from the well to the hut. It was three hundred yards, and she had to stop several times. The last hundred yards had the peasant Rudolph and Slade standing watching by her and encouraging her as she cast and recast her earth-moving spell.
Very little of the water from the well survived the trip to trickle into the patches of Rudolphs’s ‘fields’ which is what they wanted. A steady flow would have washed everything away. A bare trickle was just right, Slade thought.
Slade smiled at his wife, who stood watching him waiting for her praise which he amply distributed. Rudolph joined in as well. After giving her ten minutes of accolades, Slade began to dig with his hands into the dirt to make another patch–except it was not dirt. It was white rock and stone dust. Shella joined him with her spell, and Slade dug up the dust turned temporarily to quicksand as well as he could.
As the spell faded, he leaned back on his heels while kneeling. The ground looked unsatisfactory. Better than before, and he looked over at Rudolph who seemed quite pleased. He glanced at Shella.
“Tell me truthfully, hon.”
“I’ve seen better soil, m’lord. This is like if you dug up a footpath on the sunny side of your castle.”
“I saw no earthworms. It's all clay and rock.”
“Beg your greatnesses, but it's fluffy,” Rudolph protested, and pointed in comparison to the patches where he had barely scraped away the top with his wooden hoe. Slade struggled for the right words to say, but just how did you say ‘compared to the aftermath of a nuclear war, your garden looks swell’ without it being offensive?
“We’re looking for ways to be better, good man,” Shella said softly, and the peasant’s face lit up in awe and pleased anticipation. Shella caught Slade staring at her. She stuck out her tongue at him, and added. “And I’m sure my Lord Slade will figure it out.” Laughing, she took a few steps, and found a place to sit. Rudolph turned hopefully to Slade.
Hmmmm. Earthworms. Oh. He got up and jogged over to the well. The wet dirt around it with the grass patch should have some. He began to dig with his hands, and soon was handing out healthy, if not giant, earthworms to Rudolph with instructions to put them in wet soil, but not so wet that they drowned. For the next hour, he and Rudolph transported unwilling migrants from the soft dirt near the well to the new patch and the older patches. He was sure that ten worms for each of the patches was way too few, but they would have children.
He did not pay too much attention to the farmers in his manor, but one thing he had picked up was that farming took time and patience and planning. Another thing he remembered was taking clover and tilling it back into the soil. There was no clover here, but that did not mean he could not find greenery. Besides, he had another issue. He was getting rather hungry.
Rinsing his hands in the well, he turned to Rudolph.
“Do you know where I could find some grass or bushes in the wasteland, and some animals to hunt?”
“Oh.” Rudolph looked caught in a bind with a look of fear on his face.
“I’m not going to hurt you, good man. I’m afraid that my wife and I need to eat.”
“Ah, well, if you wanted to, there might be something about two miles that way.” He waved off to the northwest. The man was trembling, and Slade studied him. Telling the man that he was not going to hurt him had done little. Oh.
“I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Rudolph’s head jerked up and he had a look of terror in his eyes.
“No one?” he beseeched Slade.
Gravely Slade spoke.
“On my honor as Lord Slade, and as a warrior of the great god Thor, I will speak to no one of this matter but you and my wife. I am a thrice-honored hero of the Twin Rivers Caliphate and a friend of the Caliph of the East Wind, and I will not speak of this.” A sudden burst of wind blew past them both.
“Great lord, it's, I have to hunt. If I did not I would starve, and so would Dog. But hunting is only for the High Planner and his men, and if caught, I could be whipped or set as a fox.” Slade was not sure what ‘set as a fox’ meant, but he had a pretty good guess, and he found a sudden craving to meet the High Planner in person and in private to have a short and very pointed discussion with the man.
“All right. Any more advice?”
“The small beasts with red fur. Don’t kill them. They stink. Even Dog won’t eat them.”
“Gotcha. No red fur.” He stood up and walked over to Shella. “Want to go hunting?”
“Love to, husband.” She put up her slender arm for Slade to grab, hopped up with her hand being held by Slade, and waved at Rudolph and Dog before leaving with Slade to go to the not yet found hunting spot.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
